Responding to Cold Weather Main Breaks

Recent extreme cold weather has affected a large numbers of private and public water lines across the country, resulting in low pressure, main breaks and water service disruptions, including this one at New York's JFK airport.  During the cold snap over the 2018 New Year's holiday, the St. Louis region alone had to deal with 60 breaks per day, with more than 40 crews out at a time. 

Responding to these events, both the dramatic and the more "invisible" ones, can be particularly challenging and can put utility staff at risk. Here are some resources that can help when frigid weather causes trouble: 

• USEPA's Extreme Cold and Winter Storms Incident Action Checklist
• Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation's Intro to Small System Systems chapter five section on methods for thawing out frozen water lines (p. 181).
• Of course, prevention is the best cure, so here is Indiana AWWA's updated winterizing checklist for ideas on how to prepare for freezing temperatures, snow, ice and sleet at your utility and around town the next time around. For even more readiness tips, take a look at this article on how to make water infrastructure winter-ready. 

Need a good public education tool to explain the water main break repair process to the general public? Check out this video from the city of Midland, Michigan showing how water distribution crews handle main breaks during the cold winter months. And here is another example from the city of Arlington, VA.

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Pipe Wars

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The Drive to Privatize: Who Wins, Who Loses When Towns Sell Their Water Infrastructure

Make no mistake about it, small town utilities can represent a lucrative investment for private companies who are offering cash-strapped officials across the nation a way out of their water woes. A recent article in the Washington Post is taking a long look at how municipalities are dealing with urgently needed repairs to their water infrastructure, sometimes by offloading the burden to for-profit water companies. According to the article, investor-owned companies bought 48 water and sewer utilities in 2015, 53 systems in 2016, and 23 more through March of this year (figures from Bluefield Research).

Yet the decision to sell can come at a great cost - literally. When a private company takes over a water system, decisions on rate increases are taken out of the hands of local officials and instead decided or monitored by a state utilities regulator. "What can initially seem like a great deal" says Bolingbrook, Illinois Mayor Roger Claar in this 2016 Better Government Association article, can turn quickly sour: “The reality is [these communities] get rate increases like they never imagined.” And there are other drawbacks as well.

Ask the residents of Charlestown, Indiana who are currently in the crossfire of their town's controversial move to sell their water system to Indiana American Water Company, a deal which will significantly raise their water rates. A community group called NOW (No Outsourcing Water) is actively opposing the sale, and has filed a complaint with the state's utility regulatory commission, calling into question their mayor's motives.

Indeed, loss of public accountability can be a result when towns sell utilities. With publically-owned systems, if public officials do not respond to public concerns about the water, they can be voted out of office in the next election cycle. But when a utility is sold, it no longer has to answer to voters for contamination problems, or for rate increases for that matter. In the meantime, the water system in Charlestown still suffers from excessive manganese which turns the water brown.

Although the nation-wide percentage of privately-owned water utilities is still rather small (12%), 30-70% of water utilities in Indiana and 14 other states have gone private according to the Washington Post article. Why are so many of these towns then willing to sell?

Well, for one, private water companies have the capital to invest in infrastructure and meeting water quality regulations. Simply stated, these companies are in a better position to fix problems created by a history of funding shortages. These water company acquisitions can free up towns to use their limited funds to hire and retain critical police/fire and other staff and make much-needed repairs to roads and more. So unless state and federal funding can keep up with the acute need for expensive water infrastructure improvements (which, according to this article, it hasn't - and in fact has been decreasing), there often is no place to turn for budget-crunched public officials looking to protect public health.

But this is not happening across the board. While some small towns are considering selling, groups like Food & Water Watch are actually seeing a reversal of the private water trend especially among larger municipalities - They have compiled the water rates of the 500 largest community water systems in the country (the largest water rate survey of its kind in the country) and found that there is an ongoing nationwide trend toward public ownership of water systems.

All the same, the key finding of this report is that of the 12% of water companies that do operate privately, most are located in small, rural communities. So who wins and who loses? Each situation is unique, and for many small towns, the answers do not come easily.

How are States Using Drinking Water Revolving Fund Set-Asides?

Question: What do the following small system programs have in common? 

• A small system electronic asset mapping project in Nevada
• Free consolidation assessments and facilitations in Texas
• New equipment to help with energy efficiency audits in Utah
• A licensed operator internship program in New Jersey

Answer: They were all funded with Drinking Water State Revolving Fund set-asides.

While there are many critical infrastructure needs the DWSRF program addresses across the nation, sometimes valuable non-infrastructure opportunities such as these can get lost in the shuffle. A new analysis from the EPA is helping shine a light on the wide variety of capacity-development projects funded via set-asides that have been implemented across the country. Taking a look at this analysis is particularly helpful if state-level decision-makers need ideas about how to use set-aside funding, or have questions about set-aside funding in general. 

Using data from state DWSRF plans and capacity development reports, the analysis can help answer these needs and questions. It shows that states are using set-aside funding in the following nine (9) areas: Training and Technical Assistance, Financial Management and Rate Studies, Source Water Protection, Program Implementation (Capacity Development), Water and Energy Efficiency, Partnerships, Data Management, and Emerging Contaminants. What is important to note here is that there is a large amount of flexibility inherent in the program, which is a great thing when you are looking for ways to support important capacity-building programs in your own backyard.

What exactly is a set-aside fund? According to the EPA, set-asides are portion of each state's annual capitalization grant that support water system capacity, operator certification, source water protection, and training/technical assistance to PWSs. Set-aside funding cannot be used for water system infrastructure projects. Instead, the set-asides support "activities necessary to ensure safe and affordable drinking water by: (1) providing states with flexible tools to assist water systems with training, technical assistance and pre-construction activities; and (2) extending and enhancing the impact of DWSRF funding by ensuring that water systems have the technical, managerial and financial capacity to obtain a loan and to effectively maintain their resources." States can take up to approximately 31 percent of their capitalization grant for set-aside funding. 

Each state can develop its own funding balance between infrastructure and non-infrastruture DWSRF loans, and this balance can change year-to-year. Finally, states should review their Public Water Supply System Program priorities on a regular basis to determine the effectiveness of set-aside usage. Happy planning! 

Water Operator Salaries Depend Largely on Geographic Location

Top 2017 Resources from WaterOperator.org's Bi-Weekly Newsletter

2017 was a great year for the WaterOperator.org newsletter team. We not only reached our 200th edition milestone this past fall, but we also were successful in connecting a significant number of water professionals with useful and relevant resources, resources that could be used on-the-spot to solve pressing issues, or help guide utility best practices, or help water decision-makers plan ahead for their communities. 

While many of the events, articles and resources featured in our newsletters garnered interest, here is a list of our most clicked-on resources of 2017.

• A Water Security Handbook: Planning for and Responding to Drinking Water Contamination Threats and Incidents, US EPA This document provides guidelines for utilities to plan for possible contamination incidents, including sampling, public health procedures, and recovery.
• At the Confluence of Nutrients, Pharmaceuticals and Sustainability: Emerging Issues in Wastewater Management, University of Michigan/Central States Water Environment Association  This presentation discusses the effects of emerging contaminants on wastewater treatment and possible solutions.
• Sampling Guidance for Unknown Contaminants in Drinking Water, US EPA This document provides new guidance to first responders and drinking water utility operators on the collection, storage, and testing of potentially contaminated drinking water when the contaminant is unknown.
• Water Conservation Techniques For Small and Medium Water Systems, Florida Rural Water Association This paper provides thorough descriptions of water conservation measures that have been demonstrated to be effective for small water systems.
  
• The State of Public Water in the United States, Food & Water Watch A compilation of water rates of the 500 largest community water systems in the country (the largest water rate survey of its kind in the country). 
• Emergency Disinfection of Small Water Systems, Washington State Department of Health  Emergency, stop-gap measures to get water quickly to the public in a crisis situation. 

Did you use one these resources at your utility this year? If so, we'd love to hear from you! Do you have a favorite "go-to" resource to share? Again, we'd love to know! Our email is info@wateropertor.org , or connect with us on Facebook or Twitter. 

Winterizing for Water Utilities

A few years back, we featured a Winterizing Checklist for Water Utilities from the Indiana Section of the AWWA on this blog. As the weather turns colder once again, it's probably a good idea to review their updated checklist for ideas on how to prepare for freezing temperatures, snow, ice and sleet at your utility and around town. For even more readiness tips, take a look at this hot-off-the-press article on how to make water infrastructure winter-ready. 

Preparing for winter weather can be as simple as making sure workers have warm work clothes, but it also means that every precaution should be taken to keep excess ice off your water tower, which can be not so simple at times. And being prepared means taking a look at all aspects of your operation: hydrants, wells/pumping equipment, storage tanks, backflow, emergency preparedness, trucks/backhoes/equipment, worker needs and emergency stock items. 

Wastewater treatment plants have unique winterizing needs. Bacteria critical to the treatment process can slow down, resulting in elevated BOD and COD levels in the effluent. So, keeping bacteria warm and cozy might mean adding additional chemicals or cold weather formulations of hardy cold-resistant bacteria. And did we mention snow? Check out this presentation on how one Maine wastewater treatment plant prepares for winter. They should know! 

Finally, we all know about the neighbors who went away on vacation in the wintertime, only to return to a house with burst water pipes. You can help your community members avoid this and other winter-related mishaps by sharing this video or fact sheet. Stay warm and safe this winter! 

What's That Smell? Eliminating Wastewater Treatment Odors

With all this talk about public awareness of hidden water system infrastructure, it is important to point out that there are times when public awareness is definitely NOT on your side. And one of those times is when there is a stink that just doesn't go away.

Odors are generated from every phase of wastewater management including collection, treatment, and disposal, and they can cause all sorts of public relations issues, putting pressure on an utility to resolve the problem in a timely way. Certainly, managing odors is one of the most important - and yet most challenging - aspects of wastewater treatment. 

Why so challenging? Because in part there are many odor control technologies available but no single ideal solution. Some systems, like this Brownsville Public Utilities Board plant in Texas, solve odor problems by placing covers over wastewater tanks and channels and then blowing the smelly hydrogen sulfide gas through a biological tower. Others such as this Bridgeport, CN Water Pollution Control Authority plant, capture odorous offgas with coated fabric covers and treat it with a carbon system. Still others use a combination of  different measures, such as activated sludge diffusion, carbon adsorber sytems, pump station chemical feed systems, coverings and plant operation modifications. 

But fixes like these don't come easily, or cheaply. And sometimes, the problem is even more complex. Consider this story of a system in Saline, MI that has been the subject of neighbor complaints for years. Even after odor studies and abatement work, the smell just keeps getting worse. 

How can a smaller system then, with its limited funding and manpower, address odor problems effectively? The cheapest way to control odors is at their source, according to this Science Daily article, but sometimes that is simply not possible. Fortunately, researchers from the University of British Columbia may have recently developed a solution. 

Many wastewater facilities use anaerobic digestion, but is is expensive to acquire and maintain the associated odor control and biogas safety equipment needed. A much more cost-effective way to mitigate odors, these UBC researchers have discovered, is to revisit metal salts treatment. Simply adding new combinations of these common commercial metal salts during the fermentation process dramatically improves offensive odors, and also improves their ability for remove water from digested sludge. It is these unique doses/formulas and point of addition during the fermentation process that really amplifies the effectiveness of this new approach. Moreover, the cost of adopting their technique is minimal, so smaller systems can afford to test it out. 

In the meantime, if you need a quick primer on odor generation and management, the Water Environment Federation (WEF) has a 7-page factsheet explaining the problem and outlining advantages and disadvantages of various mitigation strategies. 

You can also keep an eye out for odor events right here on WaterOperator.org. For example, this Iowa training later in the month troubleshoots lagoon odor issues. Just type "odor" in the keyword search box on the event calendar page. 

Want to brainstorm with other wastewater professionals? Attend WEF's Odors and Air Pollutants Conference 2018 in Portland, Oregon in March, 2018. With sessions ranging from "Optimizing Hydrogen Peroxide Dosing" to "Odor Control Scrubber System Planning and Design," there will be many opportunities to learn in-depth solutions to any smelly situation.